DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Rising Islamophobia has recently manifested itself in rallies organized across Europe by a group called Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West. Surveys show negative perceptions of Islam are on the rise in the United States as well. But is Islamophobia an issue unique to non-Muslim countries, as many might assume? Not so, according to Mehmet Yanmis, a scholar of religious sociology at Dicle University in Diyarbakir, the largest city of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Yanmis said the rise of the Islamic State (IS) and its slaughter of civilians had fueled Islamophobia in Muslim societies as well, a process he believes will strengthen trends toward secularization.

“In the Islamic world, young Muslim generations with a secular education or strong political or commercial bonds with the West are being estranged from Islam, especially by the killings of civilians,” he said. “I think Islamophobia or fear of fundamentalism will become a major topic of discussion in the near future for all of us in Muslim societies, from Morocco to Indonesia. … This will encourage secularization along with modernization.”

According to Yanmis, who has been researching Islamophobia for six years and is a published author on the issue, the trend is very real in Turkey, especially in the southeast, where a bloody feud between Islamist and secular nationalist Kurds dates back many years.